Summer cooled into fall and the hopes that this new class would settle into the greatness of their previous one cooled into disappointment and resignation. Lina tried to cling to a modicum of hope. Despite her strangeness Morticia and several of the other students were brilliant. Even Anne, who remained annoying, was a good student. But the strong and bizarre personalities ranged from aggravating to exhausting to deal with. Factor in running a school, maintaining a large house, teaching and raising two growing babies and Lina was far busier than she liked to be. Still, there were bright spots on the horizon even if the weather was miserable.
Rain pounded against the glass as Lina slowly opened her eyes and looked out the window. But not even the cloudy skies could dampen her mood. She turned and wrapped her arms around Gourry and buried her head on his chest as she kissed his shoulder. He stirred a little and started to stroke her hair.
"We did it." Lina murmured.
"Hm." He replied, his voice still groggy with sleep.
"It was hard." Lina said, "One of the hardest things I've ever done."
He opened his eyes and looked at her for a moment, "Huh?"
"But we kept not just one but two little humans alive for a year!" she spelled out for him.
He stared at her for a moment and then he smiled, "Well I never doubted that we could do it. Only I didn't expect how challenging it would be."
"Yeah, I mean I knew the diapers and late night feedings would be rough. And I had some doubts, I mean I'm real good at killing Mazoku, but keeping babies alive? I mean it already felt like a stretch. But then the Mazoku race tried to take them and it added a whole new level of difficulty to the whole thing!" Lina said.
"It's a good thing they're tough like their mother," he said as he drew her to him for a kiss when the swoosh of a portal opening burst through the room.
But by now they were used to it and they merely turned in the direction of the sound to see which twin was on their way. Midas stepped into the portal and lifted the leg that had a rope tied to it and directed a pulse of energy to it, severing it. Then he smiled victoriously as he started to toddle forward as they heard Moe cry from the other side of the portal, "Oh come on!" as it closed behind him.
Lina and Gourry laughed as Midas walked up to them and reached his arms out for Lina as he said, "Milk!" as another portal opened and Aurelia started to crawl through it, a singed rope around her ankle.
"Don't worry about the twins!" Lina yelled as the portal closed. She picked her son up and smiled at him, "Happy Birthday!"
He smiled at her as she brought him to her breast and sighed, "So I guess there's no resting on one's laurels in parenthood. Though now that they're a year I feel good about leaving the nursing to the wet nurses."
Gourry picked up Aurelia, who crawled over to Lina to latch on beside Midas. Lina leaned back against the headrest and gave each baby a tender caress but couldn't quite keep the tiredness from her eyes, "So you two enjoy, soon this body is going to be closed for business!"
"It's been a lot for you keeping up with all of this. It'll be good to step back a little."
She looked into Midas's eyes and smiled and then a conflicted expression settled on her features, "Yeah, well, it's not as if there aren't other ways to spend time with them. Ways that don't take so much out of me."
"And plenty of family adventures ahead of us." He said. "That hopefully won't involved Mazokus. We're just going to have to take off the target you wander around with."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She said as she smiled a little, "So, now that they're a year are you anxious to get me knocked up again?"
"There's no rush." He said, "We can wait till we get new teachers and we know more about M."
"That's true." She said, "And I want some time to enjoy having my body to myself for awhile and not have someone else's survival depend on it."
"Take all the time you need." He said as he wrapped an arm around her, "Having another one does give more reassurance that the future with M won't happen I guess. But it can wait."
"We're going to have a little party later." Lina said as she kissed Aurelia on the forehead as they dropped the twins off at the nursery, "There will be cake! You've never had that before but you will love it."
"Justina!" Amelia called as she walked in, "Guess who made it on time for your birthday!"
Justina turned around as Zelgadis and Phil followed her in. As she got up and toddled over to them Lina briefly wondered if she should worry about the fact that Aurelia was the only one of the three who wasn't walking yet, but then everyone kept telling her that babies develop at different rates. And given Gourry's visions it wasn't as if she would never walk!
Amelia picked up Justina as Phil reached his arms out, "She's gotten so big!"
"Do you remember your grandpa?" Amelia asked as Justina looked at him uncertainly as she cuddled closer to Amelia.
"I think not." Zelgadis said.
"Not to worry, by the time I leave we'll be good friends." Phil said as he tickled her under her chin and she laughed a little as Moe walked up.
"Hi," he said to Phil, "It's good to see you again. I'm not sure if you remember me…"
"I remember you ran a competent nursery." Phil said, "And it appears that you're my son-in-law now."
"Yeah," Moe said anxiously.
Phil then grabbed him into a big bear hug, "Welcome to the family! Call me Phil!"
"Thanks!" Moe said as he returned the hug.
Without warning Phil grabbed Amelia and Zelgadis and pulled them into the embrace as he yelled, "Saillune Royal Family Hug!"
Amelia laughed as she leaned into the embrace while Zelgadis went rigid as his eyes widened in surprise. Lina and Gourry both choked on their laughter as Phil suddenly realized that someone was missing, "Where's Gracia?"
"She's a bit under the weather today." Moe said as the group hug broke apart and Zelgadis tiptoed to the other side of the nursery, "Once she got to the third trimester her energy vanished and she's not been feeling well. It's nothing serious or anything, just pregnancy pains."
"Hmm, my wife was the same. I'll drop in on her after breakfast."
"She'd like that." Moe said.
A likely story, Lina thought, but then she forced her face into a smile as Phil spotted her, "Lady Lina! Sir Gourry! It's good to see how your beautiful family has grown since I've been gone!"
"Nelly did a great job with the cake!" Gourry commented as he ate a slice as he watched as the twins and Justina finger painted with it.
"Let's just hopes it washes out of their hair." Lina said as she shook her head.
"Does any of it go in their mouths?" Zelgadis asked as he smiled in bemusement.
"Where's the fun in that?" Naga asked.
"I don't see you smearing cake all over your face." Lina murmured.
Naga laughed, "I wouldn't want to steal the show!"
Lina rolled her eyes as Leia walked up with a rag and started cleaning Midas's hands. "Well it's certainly been a fun little party but we don't want to keep them up too late."
"Yeah," Lina said, "I should probably settle in for one last feeding and get them on to bed."
"I know it's late," Luna said, "But when you're done if you could join me and the other teachers in the upstairs parlor. It's important."
Usually once the twins were in bed Lina preferred to put the workday behind her. But something about the expression on Luna's face alerted her to the fact that it would be best to see what she had to say. "Sure."
"What's up?" Lina asked as she walked into the upstairs parlor with Gourry and took a seat. Luna was there, along with Zelgadis and Amelia, Sylphiel and Rick, Han and Leia and even Phil. Naga stood on the far end of the room as though she wanted to put as much distance between her and Phil as possible.
"This appears to hold the key to a critical puzzle we've been dealing with." Luna said as she handed Lina a letter.
"What?" Lina said as she opened it as Gourry leaned over her shoulder.
"It's from the woman who runs the orphanage that Tom and Anne were at. She couldn't think of any linkage between Anne with an M name but Tom…" Luna said.
"His middle name." Lina said as everyone crowded around expectantly, "Marvolo."
"Tom Marvolo Riddle." Luna said.
"So he's M then?" Amelia asked.
"We still shouldn't jump to conclusions." Zelgadis cautioned. "But the evidence is certainly piling up in that direction."
"He's been a bad influence on Arnold." Sylphiel said.
"What do you mean?" Luna asked.
Sylphiel exchanged a look with Rick, "He's been more arrogant."
"How is that even possible?" Zelgadis asked.
"He's also been defiant." Rick said, "And convinced that we owe him."
"Owe him? Owe him for what?" Lina asked.
"He's nursing a grudge back from when the Mazoku lords attempted to kidnap the twins and he fled from the manor." Sylphiel explained. "During the celebration of the twin's birth he wasn't allowed in the parade with the students and he felt cheated of his hero's welcome."
"He can have his damn hero's welcome when he's done something heroic." Lina said.
"He's also been so terrible to Nelly that she's starting to think it isn't worth keeping him on." Leia said.
"You can tell him if he can't be respectful and helpful to Nelly then he can go home." Lina said. "I'm not liking this at all. Tom has been gathering a group around him. Arnold follows him around like some sort of toady. So do a lot of the new students. But some of the old ones have even joined in. Mara Jade, Hyacinth. Even Owen."
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but this all seems rather conclusive to me." Amelia said.
"There's one problem." Gourry said, "The kids in his group have been calling him by some sort of codename. But it doesn't begin with an M."
Lina was a bit surprised that Gourry had noticed the group and the codename, but then by now she should know not to underestimate him. "What is it?"
Gourry looked a little sheepish, "I forgot. It was a very strange name and I didn't hear it properly. It didn't begin with an M and it wasn't Marvolo so it didn't seem that important."
"Well, perhaps because we avoided that big accident it somehow caused a chain reaction that led to M choosing a different name." Amelia said persistently.
"But how would those two even connect?" Lina said as she felt as though she was going to go cross eyed. Why could nothing about this school year be simple?
"Let's stick with the facts. What do you know about this group?" Luna asked.
"Not a lot. They manage to keep under the radar. I can never seem to catch them in a meeting." Lina said.
"Yeah, if I happen upon them Tom usually changes the subject." Gourry says, "And what's strange is that even if I mask my presence and keep out of sight it's as though he's aware of me. It's usually when kids in the group are talking without Tom that I can get snippets of anything."
"I was sneaking around the manor and found one of their meetings one evening." Naga said, "And as soon as I did Tom adjourned it. But it was obviously the beginning of the meeting. It made no sense."
A sinking feeling grew in Lina's stomach as she considered the possibilities for how Tom was aware of them, none of them good. Meanwhile Leia mused, "Student meetings aren't against the rules and the kids are usually rather open about discussing them. So why all the secrecy?"
"It can't be anything good."
"From what I gather from Arnold, it's to separate the students into an in club and an out club." Sylphiel said.
"This is not something we can afford. We have a common enemy, the Mazoku." Lina said firmly, "I can't have a student pitting the kids against each other."
"So how do we approach this?" Han asked.
"There's no family to send him home to." Gourry said quietly.
"We can't let compassion blind us to the danger he poses." Lina said.
"We need to do some unity exercises among the students. Particularly those with the students in Tom's group with those he has been targeting, like Anne." Sylphiel said.
"Unity exercises?" Zelgadis said doubtfully.
"Break them up, have them find five things they have in common with each other, play trust games, things like that." She said.
"I'll put you in charge of developing that." Lina said. "Meanwhile I'm going to have a talk with Tom and give him a warning."
"Will you expel him if he doesn't stop?" Luna asked.
"That's a hard question, isn't it? Some people say to keep your enemies close so you can know what they're doing…" Lina said as her voice trailed off as the images of Gyria City being consumed by fire rose before her. She felt as though she could choke on the smoke as she remembered seeing the boy's dead body as Xellos soberly informed her that he had no heartbeat. And the hatred she had felt for Gaav and his minions for doing this.
Only Gaav and his minions hadn't done it. Xellos had. On the orders of the boy whose heart wasn't beating not because he was dead but because he was the Mazoku lord Hellmaster Fibrizo. Anger at how thoroughly she had been manipulated and deceived charged through her as Gourry put a hand on her shoulder as he noticed how she tensed. "But then keeping my enemies close has never worked out well for me."
"There's also the matter of access. Learning sorcery is expensive." Zelgadis said, "Sending him back to the orphanage would make it far more difficult for him to do so."
"How were Anne and Tom even able to afford it?" Lina asked.
"Their local guild was active in trying to find and recruit talent and got them started. Some lucky students are able to snag sponsorships from wealthy families." Luna explained.
"So there is a chance that if we expel him he will still be trained." Han said.
"But not by us." Lina said, "And no one does this better than us."
"So you've made up your mind?" Luna asked.
"I'm still going to give it some thought." Lina said, "But I'm going to talk with him. And if these shenanigans keep up then he can pack his bags."
AN: Like every parent, I spent so much time and money baby proofing the house before my son was born…only to have him find a workaround with every single one of them. He even figured out how to pick locks. So in conclusion I have decided baby proofing is useless. So yeah, I think the twins are going to keep Lina and Gourry and Moe on their toes, BWAHAHA!